Story
Loki, brother of Thor from Asgard, has stolen an energy source called the Tesseract, that can also act as a door between two worlds. The S.H.I.E.L.D organization is building a team of superheroes named The Avengers to fight Loki and bring the Tesseract back.

WELL DONE
Technically, the movie is of course, as you'd expect with a $220 million budget, good. Everything is well done. All the make ups, the costumes, the sets, the special effects are perfect. And that's the problem. Everything is perfect, like a nice lifeless toy. Even the format is too nice, at 1.78. For a blockbuster movie like this, I would of course personally prefer a 2.35. But it has its charm, nevertheless.

CHARACTERS
My favourite characters are without any single doubt Stark (Iron Man) and Dr Banner (The Hulk). Why, you ask? Well, simply because the first one wears Black Sabbath sweats, attacks with AC/DC's loud music and is having fun lines, not caring about anything. As for the second, he's not perfect, is feeling unsecure and it's good fun to guess when he's going to be angry and transforms into a green monster.

WATCH IT FROM THE BEGINNING
The lesson I learned in the last years or so is that watching this movie without having watched the previous MCU movies is a terrible idea. If you do so, you won't understand why Captain America is annoyed by Iron Man or the backstory from Thor and Loki. I must say I've watched this movie a few times and the first times I disliked it. And after having watched the first movies before, I much, much more enjoyed it. I won't say this movie is awesome, but it is surely entertaining, and this is its primary objective.

THREE ARCS
The story is having three arcs. First, the introduction, where we get to understand the story. It is quite nice, as we discover the new Hulk (first appearance of Mark Ruffalo) and more.
Second, the story taking place on the flying ship. While it is interesting, I think this is the biggest flaw of the film, or at least its downside. I think this story is too long. For a film that long, it takes a lot of screen time and while it is fun at first, it feels quickly old.
Third, the fight in New York. This is a classic for any superhero movie. I wonder how many times New York was destroyed in movies. Maybe in the next superhero film, they should invade a small town instead. That would seem more ironic.

SUMMARY
A very well produced movie that does the job. I give it 6 out of 10. Very good.